Computer Engineering Commons^™

Ultra Low-Power, High-Performance Presence Detection System, Dante Bajarias, Cristian Medal, Jashan Kaeley

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

The proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices emphasizes a greater connection between humans and smart technology. From computer peripherals, personal electronics, and domestic appliances to building access management, healthcare, and security systems, modern applications are generating as much data or more than they are receiving from other sources. Human presence is a type of data that is becoming a compelling requirement for a plethora of today’s applications that must ensure seamless interactions of users with the systems and their associated services. The ultra low-power, high performance presence detection system is an accelerometer-based system capable of person detection, people counting, …

Edge-Connected Microcontroller Security, Divya Syal, Gavin Ryder, Neena Ekanathan

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

With a wide range of applications and the rise of cyber attacks, securing microcontrollers has become imperative; however, ensuring microcontroller performance is also crucial given how interconnected today’s systems are. This project examines the security and performance of next-generation microcontroller units leveraging new security solutions for IoT edge applications. By benchmarking these MCUs against key performance metrics, their viability will be assessed to facilitate the widespread adoption of this latest firmware.

Our research focuses on profiling the power consumption and performance of the new STM32H573 and the integrated Secure Manager, a new technology from ST Microelectronics that allows for privileged …

Autonomous Microgrid System, Xavier Kuehn, Brian Xiong

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

Microgrids have made a revolutionary change in the realm of energy distribution due to the features that they offer, including localized, resilient, and sustainable energy solutions. Operating renewable resources in a microgrid while maintaining generation-load balance and acceptable voltage-frequency limits has been an open research problem. This thesis presents smart python agents for microgrid systems to automate the operations and control of microgrid renewable resources in an effort to provide resilient solutions to the intermittence issues that could potentially arise within the microgrid energy system. The smart agents operate the microgrids by not only integrating the use of renewable energy …

Uhd: Unary Processing For Lightweight And Dynamic Hyperdimensional Computing, Mehran Shoushtari Moghadam, M. Hassan Najafi

Faculty Scholarship

Hyperdimensional computing (HDC) is a novel computational paradigm that operates on long-dimensional vectors known as hypervectors. The hypervectors are constructed as long bit-streams and form the basic building blocks of HDC systems. In HDC, hypervectors are generated from scalar values without considering bit significance. HDC is efficient and robust for various data processing applications, especially computer vision tasks. To construct HDC models for vision applications, the current state-of-the-art practice utilizes two parameters for data encoding: pixel intensity and pixel position. However, the intensity and position information embedded in high-dimensional vectors are generally not generated dynamically in the HDC models. Consequently, …

Enhanced Adaptive Image-Codebook Learning For Image Reconstruction, Yutong Ge

Computer Science and Engineering Master's Theses

In the field of image reconstruction and super-resolution, using codebooks has shown promising results despite various image degradations. Previous methods either use distinct codebooks for each image category or multiple codebooks per category, with the latter achieving better performance by capturing more nuanced image features. Our research proposes a novel method that employs enhanced sets of codebooks and weight maps tailored to each image category. These weight maps dynamically combine different codebook bases to adapt to various reconstruction tasks, resulting in improved image recognition and robustness. This approach significantly enhances the expressiveness and quality of reconstructed images, making it versatile …

E-Scooter Black Box, Soham Phadke, Suvass Ravala, Joshua Jerome, Raghav Batra, Mubashir Hussain

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

The burgeoning market for shared e-scooters is significantly hampered by the short lifespan of commercial e-scooters, which currently average just three months due to rough handling by users. To address this challenge, our project aims to extend the lifespan of shared e-scooters through an innovative onboard solution that discourages detrimental riding behaviors.

Our solution integrates a portable sensor hub from STMicroelectronics to capture ride data, which is then processed and sent via a user’s iOS app to a Google Firebase backend. A machine learning model running in the cloud analyzes the data to extract valuable metrics. These metrics are displayed …

Residual Transformer Unet For Medical Image Segmentation, Ruopu He

Computer Science and Engineering Master's Theses

With the continuous development of deep learning theory in the field of medical images, information technology-assisted treatment methods represented by medical image segmentation technology can help doctors to quickly determine the shape and location of the lesions and improve the diagnosis efficiency of brain tumors. Based on deep learning technology, this thesis carries out related research work on MRI image segmentation. The main contents are as follows:

To begin with, acquire and prepare the brain tumor (MRI) image segmentation dataset from the official MICCAI Society website. This involves normalizing the images, cropping, and slicing, as well as scaling the data …

Comprehensive Network Redundancy Implementation And Cybersecurity Hardening Project: Ensuring Resilience And Defending Against Dhcp Starvation, Stp Man-In-The-Middle, And Brute Force Attacks, Seth Shaheen

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

I have created a network topology that contains three Cisco routers, three Cisco switches, and three endpoints. The network has been built using the software GNS-3. The endpoints on the topology include one VPC, one Kali Linux VM, and one Ubuntu Server VM. The main purpose of this network topology is to show the skills I have learned during my tenure at The University of Akron. This will be done by hardening this network to ensure that the network is impervious to cyber-attacks. The Kali Linux VM will act as the attacker on the network and conduct three attacks: STP …

Exploring The Impact Of Artificial Intelligence On Project Management Across The Manufacturing, Technology, And Construction Industries, Susie Diaz Ferrera

Harrisburg University Dissertations and Theses

This study explores the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on project management across the manufacturing, technology, and construction industries. The research focuses on understanding the benefits, challenges, and long-term implications of AI utilization in these sectors. Key findings indicate that 46% of participants use AI mainly for task automation and enhancing functions like brainstorming and communication, which significantly boosts efficiency and team productivity. Despite these benefits, the research identifies several obstacles, including high initial costs, inadequate training, technical issues, and unclear regulatory guidelines. The study addresses four main questions, revealing that AI not only enhances project management processes but also …

Sustaining Digital Assets Through Mobile Estate Planning, Norliza Katuk, Asvinitha Muniandy, Norazlina Abd. Wahab, Ijaz Ahmad

An-Najah University Journal for Research - B (Humanities)

Many people own online accounts, with some having financial values like Internet banking, e-wallet and cryptocurrency. In the case of sudden death, their heirs are unaware of the digital assets possessed by the deceased person, which causes the assets to be lost forever, and the heirs might not receive the assets. If an estate plan did not account for digital assets properly, the beneficiaries would not be able to access them. Therefore, this paper addresses this issue by implementing a software development approach in designing a suitable model for sustaining digital assets through smartphones to allow the inheritance of digital …

Waypoint Profiler, Jeff Ke, Ricky Schober, Alexander Collins, Kevin Wang

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

Ocean health monitoring is crucial for maintaining the health of the ocean ecosystem. Currently, divers are deployed to collect data manually, which is both time and resource-consuming. Additionally, this process poses significant dangers to the divers. Therefore, a more efficient method for collecting oceanic data is needed. This thesis describes the design of a novel autonomous marine vehicle, the waypoint profiler. Launched from shore with scientific sensors, it autonomously navigates to ocean locations of interest and dives to measure key ocean health markers. The system integrates subsystems for scientific sensing, health monitoring, structural integrity, communications, and navigation/control, tailored to meet …

Piloted Autonomous Crisis Reconnaissance Robot (Pacrr), Aidan O’Hare, Luca Chierotti, Tyler Costello, Nicholas Kenny

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

PACRR stands for Piloted/Autonomous Crisis Reconnaissance Robot. The aim of PACRR is to create a low-cost, autonomous-capable quadruped robot for first responder applications such as search and rescue, detecting gas leaks, mapping obstructed areas, and other situations that are dangerous or too confined for humans. The design process for PACRR involved the addition of perception sensors to use with a simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) algorithm, alterations to the power delivery system, adjusting the control of the robot, as well as other hardware and software modifications to an open-source 3D-printed design originally developed at Monash University called DINGO.

Nautilus: Deep Sea Dexterity, Quinn Bates, Saunder Salazar, Morgan Watts, Davis Robertson, Sarah Abruzzo, Ian Staff, Nick Aguilar

Computer Science and Engineering Senior Theses

Global warming and climate change are prevalent issues in today's society. As a result, research in the ocean, earth's biggest ecosystem, is imperative in efforts to protect the environment. Santa Clara University's Robotic Systems Lab contributes to this field through work and development on remotely operated vehicles (ROVs). Nautilus was built to support geologists and other researchers, primarily in the Lake Tahoe and Monterey Bay area. Thus far the ROV s sole scientific instrument has been its onboard camera, though partner geologists desire the ability to collect physical samples using a robotic arm attachment at depths up to 100 meters. …

Deep Learning-Based Video Prediction, Mareeta Mathai

Engineering Ph.D. Theses

The task of video prediction is to generate unseen future video frames based on the past ones. It is an emerging, yet challenging task due to its inherent uncertainty and complex spatiotemporal dynamics. The ability to predict and anticipate future events from video prediction has applications in various prediction systems like self-driving cars, weather forecasting, traffic flow prediction, video compression etc. Due to the success of deep learning in the computer vision field, several deep learning Artificial Intelligence (AI) architectures such as convolutional neural networks (CNNs), long short-term memory (LSTMs), convolutional LSTMS (ConvLSTMs) and transformers have been explored to improve …

Technocene, Vir Joseph Naidu

Masters Theses

Embodied human communication within the Anthropocene. Existing at the intersection of technology, and the body.

The design industry has developed technology that is, paradoxically, isolating. The exposure to a vast audience in the digital sphere has introduced new societal pressures, leading to a disconnection from our immediate surroundings, detached, and donning metaphorical masks. Technocene lives on the fringes of the discipline by blending conceptual thinking with practical application. Through curious, experimental artifacts, it prompts us to shed our masks and embrace vulnerability. Technocene endeavors to reimagine the human experience by acting as a discursive design project. It probes the boundaries …

Smart Robot Design And Implementation To Assist Pedestrian Road Crossing, Hovannes Kulhandjian

Mineta Transportation Institute

This research focuses on designing and developing a smart robot to assist pedestrians with road crossings. Pedestrian safety is a major concern, as highlighted by the high annual rates of fatalities and injuries. In 2020, the United States recorded 6,516 pedestrian fatalities and approximately 55,000 injuries, with children under 16 being especially vulnerable. This project aims to address this need by offering an innovative solution that prioritizes real-time detection and intelligent decision-making at intersections. Unlike existing studies that rely on traffic light infrastructure, our approach accurately identifies both vehicles and pedestrians at intersections, creating a comprehensive safety system. Our strategy …

Drone Swarm Search And Rescue, Rushabh Shah, Christopher Short, Anderson Macmillan, Wyatt Colburn

Electrical Engineering

Drone swarms offer the potential to drastically reduce search times and improve the effectiveness of search and rescue operations. This senior project explores the development of a drone swarm system for search and rescue missions, focusing on two key challenges: (1) precise localization of each drone within the swarm relative to one another and (2) accurate localization of a target beacon relative to the drones. The project utilizes Real Time Kinematic (RTK) processing to enhance the accuracy of drone localization, achieving centimeter-level precision. Target localization is achieved through a triangulation-based approach using Received Signal Strength Indication (RSSI) data from a …

A Study On Privacy Over Security And Privacy Enhancing Networks, Everett Lee Conway

Master's Theses

With rapid developments in communication technologies and awareness of security and privacy risks online, Security and Privacy Enhancing Networks (SPENs) have become increasingly popular. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, workplaces encouraged employees to take additional security measures, such as VPNs. In this work, we conduct a comprehensive study on website fingerprinting attacks. A comprehensive system model and threat model based on two types of SPENs (Virtual Private Networks and Tor Networks) are presented. Moreover, we demonstrate a website fingerprinting attack by ethically collecting website fetch data and analyzing the collected data using five different machine learning classification models including k …

A Comparative Study Of The Npm, Pypi, Maven, And Rubygems Open-Source Communities, Saurav Gupta

Master's Theses

Open-source software (OSS) ecosystems, defined as environments composed of package managers and programming languages (e.g., NPM for JavaScript), are essential for software development and foster collaboration and innovation. Although their significance is acknowledged, understanding what makes OSS communities healthy and sustainable requires further exploration. This thesis quantitatively assesses the health of OSS projects and communities within the NPM, PyPI, Maven, and RubyGems ecosystems. We explore five research questions addressing project standards, community responsiveness, contribution distribution, contributor retention, and newcomer integration strategies. Our analysis shows varied documentation practices, insider engagement levels, and contribution patterns. Our findings highlight both strengths and different …

Masonry Column Analysis Through Python, Ali Sherief Saleh

Architectural Engineering

This project serves as a study of Masonry Column Analysis and Design through the lens of the TMS 402 (22) Code: mimicking in-firm tools without using finite-element analysis. Chapter 9 of the TMS 402 (22) code provides the outline of the process taken to analyze these columns.

Investigation compares columns using the Python program to hand-calculations designs as to show additional capability that is lost due to approximation. PM-interaction for the columns is computed by a stress-strain approach. This report expands on the python design and approach to User Interface and inputs that are needed to analyze multiple datatypes with …